Dave Sim's blogandmail #280 (June 18th, 2007)

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Fifteen Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast That Make You a Good Feminist

1. A mother who works a full-time job and delegates to strangers the raising of her children eight hours a day, five days a week does just as good a job as a mother who hand-rears her children full time.

2. It makes great sense for the government to pay 10 to 15,000 dollars a year to fund a daycare space for a child so its mother - who pays perhaps 2,000 dollars in taxes - can be a contributing member of society.

3. A woman's doctor has more of a valid claim to participate in the decision to abort a fetus than does the father of that fetus.

4. So long as a woman makes a decision after consulting with her doctor, she is incapable of making an unethical choice.

5. A car with two steering wheels, two gas pedals and two brakes drives more efficiently than a car with one steering wheel, one gas pedal and one brake which is why marriage should always be an equal partnership.

6. It is absolutely necessary for women to be allowed to join or participate fully in any gathering place for men, just as it is absolutely necessary that there be women only environments from which men are excluded.

7. Because it involves taking jobs away from men and giving them to women, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society.

8. It is important to have lower physical standards for women firepersons and women policepersons so that, one day, half of all firepersons and policepersons will be women, thus more effectively protecting the safety of the public.

9. Affirmative action at colleges and universities needs to be maintained now that more women than men are being enrolled, in order to keep from giving men an unfair advantage academically.

10. Having ensured that there is no environment for men where women don't belong (see no.6) it is important to have zero tolerance of any expression or action which any woman might regard as sexist to ensure greater freedom for everyone.

11. Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals.

12. An airline stewardess who earned $20,000 a year at the time that she married a baseball player earning $6 million a year is entitled, in the event of a divorce, to $3 million for each year of the marriage and probably more.

13. A man's opinions on how to rear and/or raise a child are invalid because he is not the child's mother. However, his financial obligation is greater because no woman gets pregnant by herself.

14. Disagreeing with any of these statements makes you anti-woman and/or a misogynist.

15. Legislature Seats must be allocated to women and women must be allowed to bypass the democratic winnowing process in order to guarantee female representation and, thereby, make democracy fairer.

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Okay, we are sincerely in "hurry-up offence" mode here at the Blog & Mail with Toronto Paradise Comicon bearing down us this weekend (last week from where you are – that will give you an idea of how "hurry up" our offence is), meetings with Wilf and Gerhard and Mark the Accountant this morning and I still have to finish designing my five tables of Dave's Photorealism Comics Originals Peter and Doug and Kevin are letting me have at the con. So, we're going to skip "our story thus far" as much as possible and go right to the mailbag where we are seriously lagging behind. "Our story thus far" bullet notes will be designated as OSTF and numbered in order.

OSTF #1 – Having realized that planning a signing for Salt Lake City for mid-August was a strange way to go on vacation, I've mentally retreated from that and will, instead, discuss the idea of a Faith Based Dialogue/Signing with Alan and Mimi for the spring of '08 while I am lounging about their happy home in the hills doing as close to nothing as I can manage.

Letter from Tim Corrigan. I am always pleased to hit the occasional letter still done on a typewriter. Tim is the last of a dying breed in that category. Tim writes:

"Just wanted to thank you for your recent review of my MIGHTYGUY material on your blog. While your endorsement is greatly appreciated, I didn't need to be reminded that I was once known as "wee" Tim Corrigan. As a youth I had a tendency to soil myself at the slightest hint of confrontation, and this nickname plagued me until I was nearly 40. A chapter of my life I'm not proud of, and one I certainly never expected to be made public in this manner."

Your honour, the Blog & Mail pleads guilty of the charge but with an excuse: the Blog & Mail was using "wee" in the Gaelic sense of the term (which is to say, "small" or "tiny") and pleads COMPLETELY IGNORANT of Mr. Corrigan's history as a member of our noted citizenry within the ranks of the Bladderoid Challenged whose number is said to include such luminaries as Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare and many others too deceased to successfully refute the charge.

An unnamed spokeswoman for the Blog & Mail was quoted as saying "The Blog & Mail has always held in utmost respect those members of our society who describe themselves as Bladderoid Challenged and is fully prepared to retrofit newly-discovered statements to that effect into Blog & Mail instalments for 12 April 07, 9 January 07 and December 2 06 which had been previously and inexplicably deleted from those entries by persons unknown who may or may not include Sandeep Atwal and/or Jeff Tundis."

When asked if the unnamed spokeswoman was really just Dave Sim using a higher-pitched voice because spokeswomen are always able to sell anyone on any load of old cobblers in a society where Feminists Are Automatically Given a Free Ride, the unnamed spokeswoman referred all further inquiries to the Blog & Mail Press Office which proved to be closed for a summer-long holiday.

Tim Corrigan continues:

"Also, I have it on the highest authority that I am not `older than dirt'. I was born on December 2nd, 1950 and, as every student of geology knows, dirt came into being on December 1st. So, in the future I'd appreciate it if you'd get your facts straight."

A different unnamed spokeswoman with a slightly-less-phoney-sounding voice announced that the Blog & Mail has always held to the firm policy that in all areas it attempts not only to get its facts straight, but that it endeavours always to simultaneously get its facts gay, bi-sexual, trans-gendered and "none-of-the-above" in strict compliance with whatever The Supreme Feminist Court of Canada is "on about" in their full-bore, "Damn the Torpedoes: Full Speed Ahead" Marxist-feminist delusional state in any given week. The Blog & Mail also acknowledges receipt (without prejudicial comment) of the suspiciously new-looking tearsheet of the front page of a Houghton, New York newspaper from December 2, 1950 whose headline reads "New substance discovered: farmers to explore possibility of plant-growing potential" and its subhead: "`This could knock heck out of the wheat gravel market'" quoting a local farmer identified only as "Hick from Houghton".

Hey, but seriously folks. Isn't it about time for a MIGHTYGUY Renaissance here in the comic-book field/direct market? I mean, how long does Tim have to keep producing these trade paperbacks with the entire LEGEND OF MIGHTYGUY in Pano-Rama-Toid Black and White before he's earned a place in with the other trade paperbacks? Pure vested interest: if he doesn't get a burst of orders soon, he's going to have a legitimate claim to my Pariah King of Comics label and we can't have that, now, can we?

So, I'm begging a favour here: can each of the dozen or so comics retailers who read the Blog & Mail (if I promise not to "out" you as Blog & Mail readers or Misogynist Enablers as they are known in the comic-book field) order at least a single copy of the first MIGHTYGUY trade paperback from Tim? It's advertised right on the back of the MIGHTY GUY SUMMER FUN SPECTACULAR (the one with MIGHTY GUY helping to change a tire in the middle of a raging winter snowstorm) (that still cracks me up). It's called MIGHTY GUY – THE VINTAGE COLLECTION. It's a whopping 200 pages for $16.95 and FREE shipping and Tim'll even throw in a new car and a trip to France!! (actually it says here that he was only kidding about the new car and the trip to France – but it's still a real deal).

If you're a store owner I'm sure he'll be glad to sign it and put a head sketch in it (right, Tim?) and then I'm sure he'll be able to give you SOME kind of a discount on a few copies for the shelf. It's good goofy, super-hero parody humour. I realize it can't compete with the kind of knee-slapping rib-tickling MY GOD THE SUPER-VILLAINS HAVE GANG-RAPED AND MUTILATED MY GORGEOUS WIFE/GAY SIDEKICK/BOTH IN THIS 28-PART WEEKLY SERIES stuff that Marvel and DC have been peddling the last few years (and I'm sure that whatever those wacky rib-tickling editorial sadists are about to do Jimmy Olsen is going to be even more of a laugh-out-loud FUN, FUN, FUN fest for Mum, Dad AND all the boys and girls out there in funnybook land) but, c'mon, I'm also sure Celebrate Diversity can include other kinds of senses of humour apart from the hilarious hi-jinks represented by MY GOD I USED TO BE AN AMERICAN ICON AND NOW I NOT ONLY HAVE A SUCKING CHEST WOUND, I'M DEAD! Can we not agree that ALL super-hero humour doesn't HAVE to be of the Gore Fest Slapstick variety? Please: send Tim Corrigan/New Voice Media a cheque at PO Box 25, Houghton, NY 14744 and see if MIGHTY GUY isn't long overdue for some shelf space at your place. This is the third time I've plugged his books so, for most of you, this is the third time you've said, "Maybe I should check that out."

Well, hey. Maybe you should.

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BONUS!

PHOTOS FROM THE TORONTO COMICON!



James Waley, Dave Sim, Rob Walton, Siu Ta, Blake Bell. Behind Siu Tas is Dan Kim, winner best web comic & more



Rob Walton, Siu Ta and John Tran



James Waley



Chester Brown...explaining that if he didn't find out about having to be there at the last second to receive an award on behalf of Drawn & Quarterly -- he would have shaved



Blake Bell...



...introducing Hall of Fame recipient Gerald Lazare



Gerald Lazare - Hall of Fame recipient. Worked for Bell Features in 1940s. Now & Then Times #2 cover feature



Dave Sim



The winners were:

Outstanding Canadian Writer: Darwyn Cooke (Superman Confidential)

Outstanding Canadian Artist: Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone (Batman/The Spirit #1)

Outstanding Canadian Cartoonist: Darwyn Cooke (The Spirit)

Oustanding Canadian Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

Harry Kremer Retailer Award: Happy Harbor Comics of Edmonton

Outstanding International Comic Book Creator: Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways, Y the Last Man, Ex Machina, Pride of Baghdad, Doctor Strange: The Oath)

Outstanding Canadian Web Comics Creator: Dan Kim (April & May & June, Penny Tibute, Kanami)

Fan Favorite (English): Dan Kim (April & May & June, Penny Tibute, Kanami)

Fan Favorite (French): Michel Rabagliati (Paul a la Peche)

Hall of Fame: Albert Chartier, Jacques Hurtubise, Gerry Lazarre and Gene Day

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REPLIES POSTED ON THE CEREBUS YAHOO! GROUP
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If you wish to contact Dave Sim, you can mail a letter (he does NOT receive emails) to:

Aardvark Vanaheim, Inc
P.O. Box 1674
Station C
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 4R2

Looking for a place to purchase Cerebus phonebooks? You can do so online through Win-Mill Productions -- producers of Following Cerebus. Convenient payment with PayPal:

Win-Mill Productions

Or, you can check out Mars Import:

Mars Import

Or ask your local retailer to order them for you through Diamond Comics distributors.